The preliminary results of an official audit that found serious inconsistencies and manipulation of crime statistics in various states of the country, in order to appear to reduce some crimes, were classified as reserved information for the next three years.
This despite the fact that initially the federal government had promised that at the end of 2019 an advance of the results of this audit would be announced, officially called the National Criminal Incidence Statistical Review Model (MORE), which did not happen.
Not only that. The conclusion of the MORE is even at risk due to the budget cuts announced by the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which do not guarantee that there is money to continue.
Read: State prosecutors manipulate crime data and fail to record
All of the above was revealed by the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (SESNSP), when responding via transparency to a request for information presented by Political Animal.
The MORE was officially announced on August 5 of last year, as a joint work between the SESNSOP National Information Center and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The objective was to identify the “incorrect practices for registering and classifying crimes” carried out by the country’s 32 prosecutors’ offices, with which the national crime incidence balance is presented monthly.
At that time the head of the National Center, David Esparza, said that they had already been working for five months and had a 75% progress in the audit. He announced that by the end of 2019 the preliminary results of the 32 states would be obtained and it would be announced if anomalies were found.
December 19 Political Animal published that the review had ended and that, in effect, they had found serious irregularities in some states such as, for example, a wrong and deliberate classification in crimes such as extortion or feminicide.
But the results that would be officially released at the December National Security Council session – as originally planned – were not disclosed. Said opacity has persisted throughout this year.
The opacity and the “reasons”
In the response letter dated June 17, the SESNSP reported that the preliminary results of the application of the MORE have been classified as “reserved” information for a period of three years. The foregoing, with the argument that it is information that can “compromise public security”.
“As it is information that is being collected and which in the application of the model has not been completed, it may compromise public security by delivering imprecise and incomplete information, which would be detrimental to the members of the National Council of Public Security,” he says. the trade.
In the document the SESNSP confirms that since October of last year the visits to the 32 states were concluded and preliminary results are already available. However, it is abundant that as these have not been presented before the council of the National Security System, that is, before the governors and prosecutors, they cannot be made public.
Security cabinet authorities with full knowledge of this process revealed to this media that the reason why these preliminary results have not been presented is due to the opposition of several governors who do not want the said report to be made public. In other words, it is a political reason that has prevented an analysis on security issues from being transparent.
Regarding the final or consolidated results of this audit, the SESNSP document explains that a technical analysis is being carried out in collaboration with UNODC to produce a report that not only certifies each of the findings found, but also proposes solution mechanisms. that make criminal records more reliable.
When would this analysis be ready? There is no date because, in fact, the continuity of said audit is at risk.
Danger report by clipping
In its office, the SESNSP acknowledged that it currently does not know if it will be financially possible to conclude with the MORE, after the federal government announced cuts of up to 75% in the government as an austerity measure to face the current economic crisis derived from the health pandemic.
“For the current fiscal year 2020, it is unknown whether there are sufficient budgetary resources to finish with the implementation of the MORE (…) because 75% of the assigned budget will not be able to be exercised”, indicates the Secretariat.
The SESNSP is one of the areas of the government that, despite dedicating itself to sensitive work such as the review of the security authorities, has suffered more severely from the cut in resources.
For example, in June he had to leave the offices he had occupied for several years in the Anzures neighborhood of the Miguel Hidalgo mayor’s office, because there was no money to pay the rent. Currently, the material and human resources that it had have had to be divided into two to occupy available spaces from other government agencies in the municipalities of Coyoacán and Álvaro Obregón.
Read: In the midst of a pandemic, homicides rise in 18 states and more than 6,000 killings
Officials from the Secretariat told this newspaper that the lack of work has worsened in recent months, and that there was not even enough money to even buy basic supplies such as soap for bathrooms.
Economic insecurity was one of the reasons why the head of the National Information Center and head of the MORE, David Esparza, submitted a resignation last May that was not accepted.
Unreliable crime figures
For several years, various specialists and organizations such as the National Citizen Observatory have documented irregularities in the crime incidence data that state prosecutors (formerly prosecutors) send to the SESNSP.
Said failures range from technical errors in the classification of crimes, as occurs with homicides due to traffic that are not properly documented in Guanajuato, to attempts to delay the data on intentional homicides as it was registered in Veracruz.
The current Mexico City government revealed that in the previous administration in the capital, investigation folders were classified deliberately for crimes that did not correspond, with the aim of reducing the incidence of crimes such as theft.
These anomalies were what led the SESNSP to carry out the aforementioned audit to redesign the model for presenting criminal data.
However, there are instances such as state prosecutors who, with the support of the PGR, have promoted the creation of a new statistical system separate from that controlled by the SESNSP. This despite the fact that there is a legal obligation to provide the Secretariat with the data.
This new statistical system was announced at the end of last year through the signing of an agreement between the National Conference of Law Enforcement and INEGI. However, although it was promised that it would start operating at the beginning of the year, until now no progress has been reported about it.
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